San Diego, California, USA
March 11, 2011
Cibus Global, a pioneering plant trait development firm, today announced that it has promoted Dr. Christian Schöpke to Senior Research Fellow and head of the Cell Biology Department. Dr. Schöpke, who has been working at Cibus for over 10 years, previously served as the company’s Research Director. This announcement follows tremendous growth at Cibus Global; during the last 24 months, Cibus has successfully secured $50 million in research contracts with partners to develop non-transgenic traits in crops around the world, leading to a significant expansion of research and commercial based activities.
“Throughout his tenure, Christian has been an integral part of building the Cibus team to its present position, and has played a critical role in successfully applying the RTDS technology to projects in different stages of the Cibus pipeline,” said Peter Beetham, Senior Vice President of Research, Cibus Global. “As Cibus continues to expand its trait development activities, Christian will be instrumental in directing the application of the RTDS technology to a variety of diverse crops and other plant species.” RTDS™ (Rapid Trait Development System), Cibus’ proprietary gene conversion technology, enables seed producers to develop plants that are quicker to market with less regulatory expense.
In his newly-appointed position, Dr. Schöpke will serve as the senior scientific manager for all of Cibus’ cell biology research, a department that has more than doubled in size over the past 18 months. Based in San Diego, at Cibus’ main laboratory, he is currently involved in the development of efficient regeneration systems in a variety of crops, in the optimization of RTDS™, and in GRON (Gene Repair Oligonucleotide) delivery into plant cells, with a major emphasis on canola.
Prior to joining Cibus Global, Dr. Schöpke served as a Senior Scientist in the Plant Industrial Products Division at Valigen, Inc. From 1999 to 2000, Dr. Schöpke was a Visiting Scientist at the University of California Riverside, where he established a method to genetically transform Citrus. Previously, Dr. Schöpke had performed research for various projects involving the genetic transformation of cassava, rice, tomato, and tobacco, including a project at Washington University, St. Louis and The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla that aimed to produce virus-resistant cassava plants.
Dr. Schöpke was awarded a Ph.D. in Biology for his work on regeneration of coffee protoplasts to plants from J.W. Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, where he also obtained an M.Sc.
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